Shakers Amplifiers and Channels

Shakers, amplifiers and channels

OpenShaker guide › Your hardware

Which outputs and shakers work, choosing the output channel, running two shakers, and how OpenShaker finds your shaker again after a re-plug.

Which outputs work

• Any Windows sound output that feeds a shaker amplifier: line or headphone out, USB, optical or HDMI.
• The tested setup is a ButtKicker PRO (it shows up as "Speakers (ButtKicker PRO)").
• These should work but are untested: other ButtKicker models through their amps (Gamer Plus, Gamer PRO, LFE, Advance), Dayton BST-1 and TT25, and AuraSound AST-2B-4.

Shared mode

• OpenShaker plays in Windows' shared mode, so other apps can still use the same output. It never takes the device exclusively.
• If another program has taken the shaker exclusively, OpenShaker can't start until it lets go.
• Right after being plugged in, a shaker may briefly appear only in an exclusive mode. OpenShaker then says it "is probably still waking up" and picks it up on the next retry.
• Check the Windows volume for the shaker's output too.

Output channel

Under Advanced > Output channel:

• Left is the default, as in HaptiConnect.
• If your shaker is wired to one side of a stereo amp, pick that side.
• If your shaker mixes both channels (like the ButtKicker PRO), Both may feel stronger.
• OpenShaker opens every channel the output has and sends the signal only to the ones you picked; the rest get silence. This stops Windows spreading a one-channel signal to both sides, which can make a summing shaker up to 6 dB louder than intended.
• If you pick a channel the device doesn't have, it falls back to Left.
• Use Test tone to check the channel choice.

Frequency range

shakers respond best between about 20 and 90 Hz, and most effects sit there. The engine hum and gear-shift kick follow the revs, so they go lower near idle, and the engine hum goes above 100 Hz at high revs in the Forza, ACE and BeamNG presets.

Running two shakers

• Choose Both under Advanced > Output channel. Both shakers then get the same signal.
• OpenShaker makes one signal, so there is no front/rear or left/right split of effects.
• OpenShaker drives one output device at a time, so connect both shakers to one stereo output and amplifier.
• Balance them with the amplifier's channel levels.

Finding the shaker again after a re-plug

Windows sometimes renames a device after re-plugging, for example "Speakers (ButtKicker PRO)" becomes "Speakers (2- ButtKicker PRO)". OpenShaker ignores that number, and differences in capital letters and spacing.

Picking the device itself is described under Output on The main window.

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Next: Safety

See also: Advanced settings